


Human

by starbitz



Series: mental health awareness week [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 11:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbitz/pseuds/starbitz
Summary: "You're allowed to make mistakes. It's what makes us human."





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> just an fyi, i don't really know all that much about art. i did some research, so i hope this isn't horribly inaccurate or unrealistic.

Renjun wanted to cry out of pure frustration with himself. He wanted to scream; he wanted to throw his canvas and his laptop out the window. He just completely blew his chances in raising his grade to the A he wanted because he misinterpreted the art project’s prompt for the final and waited until the last minute to get started. He had already finished the project with only a day left to spare when he realized that he did the whole thing wrong. That was not near enough time for him to start over, from scratch, and fix it. 

The art professor for his class wanted them to create a detailed portrait of themselves using different shades of just one color. He was in such a rush to start that he only read “paint a detailed portrait of yourself” and didn’t paint it in a single color. He used multiple. He was so mad at himself.

“Renjun, did you read the rubric?” his professor asked him when he was turning his project in.

Renjun felt like his life was leaving his body. It pained him to say, “I did.”

“Do you understand that this was not the assignment and that I will have to deduct several points off of your grade because of that?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“Okay, you can go. I hope you have a good winter vacation.”

“You too,” he said quietly, giving him a curt nod as he walked out of the classroom. Hopefully, he didn’t have to see that professor again. 

On his way out of the building, he could feel how tense his shoulders were. He felt like he was seconds from breaking down from stress and the cold was not helping him in the slightest. He felt humiliated. There were only 4 other people in the classroom (since most of them had turned in their projects during the previous lecture so that they could go home earlier), yet he was positive that every student that was there thought that he was an absolute idiot. 

He managed to pull out his phone and dial Jeno’s number with his cold, stiff fingers. He needed to see him. 

_ “What’s up?” _ Jeno answered almost instantly. 

“Are you in your dorm?” Renjun asked, already walking in the direction of Jeno’s dorm.

_ “I am, why? Are you okay?” _ Jeno asked, his voice already laced with worry.

“I fucked up, but I’ll tell you when I get there,” Renjun said. “I’ll see you in 5.”

Renjun’s eyes burned. From both the cold and the unshed tears; from the lack of relief from the stress he went through to get his project done, only for it to end up being wrong. He felt like he failed himself. 

As Renjun opened the front door to the lobby, Jeno stood up from where he was waiting for him and met him halfway. He wrapped Renjun into a hug, knowing that something was obviously wrong. He was still wearing his nice dance clothes from his performance final earlier today. Renjun forgot that he had a final today as well. 

“Is everything alright?” Jeno asked, letting go of Renjun and leading him to the elevator. 

“You know how I spent almost 10 hours working on that portrait for my final?” Renjun asked. Jeno nodded, his eyebrows furrowed. He had an idea of where this was going. “I did it completely wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Jeno asked. They stepped out of the elevator on the 5th floor and started walking down the hall to Jeno’s room.

“So the prompt was to paint yourself using any shades of a single color. I didn’t use just one color,” Renjun said, running a hand through his hair. The frustration at himself came back in a wave as he finally said it out loud. He honestly felt like ripping his hair out. “This was only a 200 level class. I shouldn’t have made a stupid mistake like that. Now I’m not going to end with an A.”

“Tell me you’re not at all relieved that that class and project are over, though,” Jeno said. They walked into his room and Renjun kicked his shoes off and sat on his bed, leaning against the wall. “And a B is still a good grade.”

“I just feel like I failed myself. Like I let myself down,” Renjun said, his voice breaking. He knew this would happen. Jeno sat down facing him so the Renjun knew that he had his full attention. “All I had to do was reread the rubric so that I would know what I was doing, but I didn’t, because I’m a fucking idiot. This class wasn’t even hard, I just managed to mess everything up.”

“Renjun, listen to me. No one is perfect. I’m definitely not and you aren’t either. You’re allowed to make mistakes; it’s what makes us human,” Jeno said, holding Renjun’s shoulders with both of his hands, which were now shaking with his silent sobs. “You will be able to walk away from this. You’ll be okay because you tried your best and you put in all the effort and energy you could to get this done. That’s what matters. Not the grade. And you created a _ beautiful _piece of art.”

“If I hadn’t waited so long to start, maybe I would’ve done it right,” Renjun muttered. He wiped at his tears. He felt so _ weak _. Why was he being so overdramatic and crying, anyway?

“So what that you waited until the last minute to do a final project? Now you know to never do that again. Take your mistake, learn from it, and change your habits. You still have the next 3 years to prove to your professors and yourself that you are a talented artist. A letter grade is just a letter. It doesn’t measure potential.”

Renjun stayed quiet as he listened to Jeno keep talking. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes again. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I messed up on the choreography I made _ myself _ during my dance performance final today,” Jeno said quietly, still holding onto Renjun. He felt Renjun shaking slightly with laughter when he said that. Jeno sighed and brushed Renjun’s hair off his forehead. “You are not a failure and your mistakes do not define you, Renjun.”

Renjun felt a few more tears roll down his face as he smiled. He pulled Jeno into a hug, closing him. “I’m sorry for being so negative and overdramatic,” he said.

“No need to apologize. It’s been a long week,” Jeno said, rubbing Renjun’s back from where his arms were wrapped around him. “And please don’t ever apologize for showing emotion.”

Renjun let go and wiped the rest of his tears away. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “So, now you need to tell me how your dance performance final went,” Renjun prompted, shifting the attention away from him for a second.

Jeno smiled. “I think it went pretty good. I did only mess up once, as I mentioned earlier, but it was embarrassing because it was obvious that I messed up when I made a face at myself. They probably took some points off for that.”

“I’m sure you still got a good grade, though,” Renjun said. 

“Yeah, I’m not super worried about it,” Jeno shrugged. “The only requirement for the piece was that we try to choreograph something in a genre that’s out of our comfort zone so, do you remember when I took those ballet lessons?”

“Yeah, like 3 weeks ago?”

“The reason I took those was so I could prepare for my final. I ended up doing ballet. It was so fucking hard. My legs and feet _ still _hurt.”

Renjun laughed. “I showed you what my final project was so you need to show me yours at some point now.”

“No, you’d probably laugh. I’m stiff as a board when I’m dancing ballet.”

“You’d probably still look better than me, though,” Renjun grinned. 

“I’ll think about it, but no promises,” Jeno said, laughing.

*

When Renjun got his grade back over winter vacation for his art final, he wasn’t surprised that his grade stayed a B. Thankfully, his overall class grade was good enough beforehand, so even with the weight of the final, it didn’t change much. He was still a little frustrated with himself, but he reminded himself that there was nothing he could do at this point to change anything. He would just do better next time.

**Author's Note:**

> day 3! i hope you guys are treating yourselves well. don't be afraid to make mistakes. the best of us mess up several times before we succeed. it's a learning process, after all. look at what went wrong and correct it for the next time. don't beat yourself up over it, because it's not the end of the world. keep trying. you have it in you!  
as always, my twitter is [@NEOZ127](https://twitter.com/NEOZ127) and my dms are open to anyone that needs to talk. take care of yourself, and thank you so much for reading :)


End file.
